Attention Recent Graduates: It Is Now Your Future

I know it’s only April, but I wanted to get a jump on the
Commencement Addresses for various Colleges, Junior Colleges, Trade
Schools, and other institutions of Higher Learning, while reminding
everyone I am available for such speaking engagements, to inform
and inspire the Youth.

Here is the “Uncorrected Proof” of my current address to the
Recent Graduate. It helps to imagine it being read in a shouting
voice.

“See your future, be your future” is not just a line one may
quote from the movie Caddyshack, starring Chevy Chase,
Bill Murray, and Rodney Dangerfield, it is a Way to live one’s
life. Like millions of people, I bet, I employ a method of Positive
Visualization in my life. One makes pictures in one’s mind of One
doing the stuff one wants to Accomplish.

In light of all the recent unpleasantness and the even
more-recent, it’s easy to make fun of this Method, but when I say
Positive Visualization, I mean for Positivity, not for Bad Things,
OK? There’s enough Bad Things, let’s have Good Things. Please stop
picturing somebody employing my Positive method for Bad Things. If
you can’t stop, please excuse yourself so the rest of us can
Evolve, OK? Things can always be Bad! That’s the Default Position!
We gotta go Positive!

I mean, I can’t spend all day crying about the Polar Bears and
melting Icebergs, you know? I know there are people, millions of
people, who are way smarter than me, and they are looking at this
problem and trying to solve it, but I also know there are
kabillions of people who don’t care about the Polar Bears and don’t
really see Icebergs melting as something that has anything to do
with their life. You have to go around these people if you want to
fix the icebergs, which probably you can’t, seriously. I’m not
saying give up, but you need to be realistic!

You may have had a Goal in mind when you enrolled in this fine
Institution of Learning, or, in the case of Junior College (of
which I am a proud Graduate), you may have been availing yourself
of a Rehabilitation program, or simply found yourself in “Grade
13,” as it were, after finding yourself in the Guidance Counselor’s
office, where he’s all like: “So, it looks like you will graduate
12th grade! What do you wanna do? Would you like to go to college?
Maybe a whole four years isn’t the best idea for you right now, eh?
You know what? Maybe you should go to ‘Community College.’ It’s
only two years, so maybe you will do better there.” In my high
school, the Guidance Counselor looked like Curly from The Three
Stooges, but I still looked to him for Guidance and
Counselling.

So look, that’s cool, you went to College, it doesn’t matter how
many years or how you got there! Now you are a Graduate! But also:
now it is your Future, and you need to See it! Hurry!

You don’t need to know how to do anything! All you gotta do is
picture yourself doing it in your mind, and then work backwards to
figure out how to make it happen! What do you want to do? It
doesn’t have to be anything complicated!

Do you want to have an apartment, or an automobile or something?
Yes! For that you need money. If you don’t have money, picture
yourself driving your new (or more likely, new-to-you) automobile,
and then work backwards from there, and figure out how you will pay
for it. One way is to have a job. Now you have a degree in College
right now, and it is for whatever, and they might not be hiring for
that to help you buy your car, so you should get out there and get
some sorta job before you get the job that you were supposed to get
with all that Colleging you probably haven’t even paid for yet. How
the fuck are you gonna pay for all that money you borrowed, and
your rent, and a car, with a poetry degree? Go get a goddamned
job!

If you managed to get a loan for the car (on top of your College
loan, which: Tick Tock) you can use the car to make money! Someone
else, someone very smart, who I bet employed my Method of Positive
Visualization, Visualized a Pizza, and then, they visualized how to
make it better, and now Pizza Hut has the Crazy Cheesy Crust Pizza
(Fig. 1), and RIGHT NOW people are looking at pictures of this
pizza on the Internet and teevee, and they want one! Here is the
opportunity for you to get money! Get these pizzas to people,
POSSIBLY EMPLOYING YOUR NEW OR NEW-TO-YOU AUTOMOBILE and you will
earn money! (Fig. 2) For your car! For your apartment! To make a
Lump-Sum Loan Interest Capitalization payment on your college if
you already are behind on your payments! To give to Smart People to
help fix The Icebergs!

If you’re good at your job, you might even get extra money from
the people who order the pizzas! They employed the Visualization
Method and you are helping them achieve their Goal. They may be
grateful! Go now! Go into the Future! For all of us! Thank you.